Muscat, July 29 (ONA) --- Royal Oman Police (ROP) and Insurance companies have completed activation of electronic link, which would create a joint database on the traffic history of each vehicle's owner.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Salim al-Salmi, Executive President of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) said that the move is part of the cooperation between CMA and ROP to improve the quality of services and to achieve fairness in determining the insurance premiums and the resulting reduction in traffic accidents and traffic violations, adding that the new system would enable insurers to store accurate data on the owners of vehicles to create a mechanism to determine fair insurance premiums for vehicles owner who abide by the traffic rules and the owners who violate the rules, which would encourage self-regulation and compliance with traffic rules. He added that the system would evaluate the drives automatically to reflect positively on prudent drivers and on the prices of motor vehicles insurance.

He added that the move is a breakthrough and material addition to the insurance sector in the Sultanate as it represents the community partnership and creation of appropriate solutions to reduce traffic accidents and the injuries and deaths.

Sheikh al-Salmi pointed out that drivers' compliance with traffic rules would contribute to reducing traffic accidents, in addition to reducing risks and losses of insurance companies, which would have positive impact on the performance of the national economy. Answering a question on the benefits of the new system, CMA's Executive President said that the system would save time and efforts for clients and reduce the burden of long procedures for the issuance and renewal of vehicles registration licenses as ROP officials would be able to ensure the renewal of the insurance policy without the need to produce the insurance documents and would reduce the paper work.

He further said that there are steps required by insurers and ROP to activate the system as the insurance officer is required to enter all the details of the policy and upload to the database through the insurance portal to allow ROP, represented by the Directorate General of Traffic, to access the details of the insurance policy when the client visits ROP for renewal.

ROP officer who renews the registration would see the insurance policy uploaded by the insurer or verify the policy
number through chassis number or vehicle number through the insurance portal. Sheikh al-Salmi confirmed that the move is an achievement in providing better and efficient insurance services to ease the
work using modern technology and e-government system, pointing out that electronic transactions ensure accuracy of information and save financial burden. He urged the drivers to drive cautiously to reduce traffic accidents, which have tragic consequences.